Education and Workforce Summit

As some of you may know, I have some involvement with the forthcoming Education and Workforce Summit - in Melbourne, on 27-28 March (just after Easter). We have been refining the issues ever since I became part of the process, and a fraught task it is.

There is now a web page for the Summit, which has a call for contributions. Anyone who is interested in library education in Australia, or the future of the Australian library workforce, is invited to make a submission or comment to the Summit process. The document provides some questions and other information. The agenda for the Summit will be determined by what ALIA members, library employers and educators see as the main issues. We hope to make all submissions and suggestions accessible on the ALIA Summit website, and for that reason there is a limit of 5 pages for submissions.

One of the most common questions asked is: who will be attending the Summit? The capacity of the venue is 50, and we are still working out which 50 will be attending. We aim to ensure effective representation of the three categories of people I mentioned above, but also achieve agreement on a clear plan of action.

Hove a look at the site, and then have your say. The Summit is being organised by ALIA National Office, and you should send your contributions to Sue Hutley.

I will keep you posted. Feel free to post back too.

Library workforce ... and thank you Jenelle

Back to where we get library staff from. And thank you Jenelle Cleary, who took notes at the session that Indra Kurzeme and I ran at the recent Melbourne Unconference, on the future library workforce. This is maybe the major topics of discussion amongst Australian librarians at present.

For Victorians, Gillian Hallam was in town last week, speaking about the library workforce at the State Library of Victoria. It is interesting that some of the main issues she has pulled out of the joint study she is doing with CAVAL also resonated with the Unconference group that met a few weeks earlier. Some of those issues were:

- Boundaries are blurring between libraries and other occupations, like IT, with big implications for the cohesion of our profession
- There is now a wide range of possible qualifications ranging from certificates (both TAFE and graduate certificates) to postgraduate masters degrees, and they are being offered by a wide range of faculties and disciplines too.
- The impression people receive is that there are not many opportunities for employment for new graduates, and there are different perceptions of why this might be the case.
- The role of our professional association in course recognition needs to be considered.

Our session on the library workforce at the Unconference also highlighted issues about our brand as librarians. The brand does not serve to attract people - why is that? Accountants have recently been through a rebranding exercise. Maybe there is a need to create and foster a coherent and attractive image of what we do. It doesn't mean a total re-brand, just a more engaging picture.

My last post on these issues brought out several comments, and it is clearly a major issue for us. Any more comments?

Another thought from Valerie Johnson's book on childrens' librarianship. She quotes John Levett: "The fate of all libraries in Australia in inexorably linked to the success or failure of the public library and this is bound up with the education and performance of its managers and senior professional staff." (Johnson, p.134) John was writing about the education of public librarians, and it is a debatable statement, but interesting.

Public librarians, at the risk of starting yet another theme on this blog, is this true?